Orajel creator David Morris Kern dies in Arizona at 103

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — Family members said David Morris Kern, the creator
of Orajel, a medicine aimed at fighting toothaches and later mouth sores, has
died. He was 103.

Allan Kern, his son, said his father died peacefully Friday at a group home in
Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Born in 1909 in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn, Kern worked as a pharmacist
before becoming a salesman for Norwich and Warner Pharmaceuticals. He created
Orajel with the help of a chemistry professor after buying a pharmaceutical
manufacturing facility with his brother and two partners. Kern developed Orajel
because he sought to find relief for teething babies.

He later sold the company to Del Laboratories in 1961 and moved to Phoenix in
1998 with his wife, Rose Ziedenweber Kern.